Hiero5ant - The difference between science and pedophilia (in this context) is that a person who is a pedophile cannot be in good standing with the church, while a scientist can, except for a few exceptions (Galileo, etc.), but those had other factors at play.

I do think this list shows that science and religion are not in conflict, because many of these individuals were openly, publicly scientists, and yet were still in good standing with their religion and some held important positions.

From the list of catholic scientists I counted 8 Nobel Laureates.From the list of atheist scientists I counted 37 Nobel Laureates.

Surely, a normal distribution curve should have emerged, or at least indicated comparable numbers. With a US population distribution of 25% catholic and 14% atheist the figures clearly demonstrate that adherence to religion is an impoverishment of the intellect.

Oh! Its good to see Yachov and Crude together again, the Tweedledee and Tweedledum of the DI website.

Because we both know these lists are exhaustive since your research skills are soooo impeccable.

Plueez!

The Nobel prize was started in 1895. What about scientists who lived prior to that time? Did you take any of this into account? Do you really know for certain the majority of the recipients in the sciences where Atheists?

What about the Muslim, Jewish and or Protestant scientists?

Are you padding you Calculations by ad hoc defining Agnostics and Deists as Atheists?

>14% atheist the figures clearly demonstrate that adherence to religion is an impoverishment of the intellect.

Says the guy who thinks Pope Sylvester II is a protestant oh & what about that Whopper you made up about Pope Gregory executing the Patriarch of Constantinople?

You so suck arse in Philosophy Logic & just plain common sense it's just not funny.

A flea in his ear.It must feel terribly debilitating to be so impotent in protecting the god memeplex.

Incidentally, regardless of when the Nobel Prize started both catholics and atheists have had equal opportunity and with far greater numbers of catholics in any one community, their representation at the Nobel Laureate level is woefully below the 30 percentile range.

I might add, in times before the inaugural Nobel Prize, there were no atheists, publicly at least, because catholics used to kill them for sport. So there was an existential issue in play for much of the 1700 years up until the Enlightenment. The following is a comprehensive overview of the manner in which christianity regarded atheists [and others] and the form of punishment metered out.

http://www.heretication.info/_atheists.html

"Before Christianity appeared many educated Romans were also atheists, regarding all gods, including the Christian one, as man-made. Christianity would not countenance such ideas. Atheism was plainly blasphemous, which meant that atheists could expect to die unpleasant deaths if they admitted to their lack of belief. Those original enough to work out their own atheist ideas were generally intelligent enough to keep their ideas to themselves, though there were occasional exceptions. In Ireland Adam Duff O'Tool espoused views that had been common in early times but which seemed blasphemous in the fourteenth century: He denied the Trinity, doubted the Virgin birth, and regarded bible stories as fables. For these beliefs he was burned alive in Dublin in 1327."

Today is holy to the Lord your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep; for today is holy to our Lord. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength! Nehemiah 8:9-10

I break for one short moment my Lenten internet fast to celebrate the fact that 3 years ago today, on this Feast of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, God the Son, who thus took on our nature, allowed my wife to take on His.

@Christofer, if you think pedophile priests weren't covered up for, transferred, and promoted for decades -- i.e. in pretty "good standing" institutionally speaking -- then you've been asleep for the past ten years of news stories.

What percentage of sexually active Catholics have used birth control? 90%? 99%? Are they "in good standing"? What would a list of some of them establish about the teachings of that religion? That is the question the OP is asking, and answer is, not much, other than that people can be remarkably adept at compartmentalizing and rationalizing away the teachings of their Church.

To address the actual claim of conflict in practice, you have to show that the list is historically representative, or that the actual teachings are or are not antiscientific. (This is why there is no list from Victor of Wahabi scientists, or Southern Baptists.)

"Oh sure, the Church maybe fumbled a bit just that one time with Galileo, but that's ancient history." And Galileo was taken off the Index Librorum Prohibitorum when? 1822. The Index itself wasn't abolished until 1966, and only as a positive legal prohibition -- it is still officially considered immoral to think those thoughts.

Crime rate lower among atheists:Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies: A First Look (Paul, 2005)

Homicide rate lower among atheists:Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies: A First Look (Paul, 2005)___________________________

And to throw this in there, prayer doesn't help sick, in fact, can make it worse: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2002901053_pray31.html

One day, just one day, you might add to the conversation rather than vent spleen. But then with a mind and an intellect that has not advanced beyond Aquinas, and indeed is not capable of sustaining contemporary thought patterns, it is highly unlikely that will eventuate.

As Henry Mencken, American journalist notes, "God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in his arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; he will set them above their betters."

Despite its rhetoric, christian theism was conceived in the dark, operates in the dark, indeed presided over an era that christian theism itself spawned, the Dark Ages, and continues to live in the shadows. Christian theism is antithetical to the Enlightenment and science.

While I don't think there is an unresolvable conflict between religion and science, and I think that Hero and Pap are off track in their criticism of your post, I do think that this as a response misses the charge. For one thing, many on this list are people who lived before the discovery of Evolution and The Big Bang so many atheists would charge that they had religion because that was the only game in town. Another issue is that the argument by smart atheists is not that one cannot do science and be religious but that the thought behind religion is incompatible than the thought behind science. Scientists who are religious wear their science-thinking hat in the lab then they take it off when they go to church. It is similar to the apologists' "You can be moral without belief in God but belief in morality and atheism are intellectually incompatible." Not saying there's a conflict, just saying a list of scientists who are believers doesn't really further the conversation.

>One day, just one day, you might add to the conversation rather than vent spleen.

One day you might read someone intelligent & make an intelligent argument for once. You might have done it a few times I recall but it's been the exception for you "Teacher" not the rule.

>But then with a mind and an intellect that has not advanced beyond Aquinas,

For example if you got off your lazy fat arse and pick up some Anthony Kenny you could (a) Get and intelligent education on the subject matter and (b) read a critic of Thomism that could at least help you form coherent philosophical objections.

Instead of this mindless shit bellow.

>and indeed is not capable of sustaining contemporary thought patterns, it is highly unlikely that will eventuate.

See what I mean? The "Aquinas was not contemporary therefore he is suspect" meme is not convincing.

Just because they were able to hide what they did does not mean they were in good standing with the church any more than a person who murders and gets away with it is any less a murderer. The fact that they performed their indiscretions in secret is itself evidence that it was looked down upon.

While those who took part in science, with a few unfortunate exceptions, could always do so publicly.

BenYou win. You are the Victor [no pun intended]I am no match for your level of personal abuse and character dissembling. My little foray of dipping my toe into the dark turgid sea of your world poisons me and disorders my moral and ethical compass, emotionally rendering me all the poorer for it.

papalinton: The links posted show far does not work as a comparison of catholics vs atheists when comparing nobel prize winners as far as I know. The only catholic nobel related link I saw was for catholic clerics.

So sure, if you compare atheist nobel winners to catholic clerical nobel winners the atheists might have an edge, but so what, apples and oranges you know.

But still, perhaps I missed a link somewhere in the thread that had actual catholic prize winners. Though how any of this matters is beyond me, the conflict thesis is discredited, what more needs to be said?

HeuristicsYes, you are right. The exercise is pointless and indeed there was little merit in posting the original OP in the first instance. And for the sucker that I am, I selfishly indulged in a little baiting.

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About Me

I am the author of C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason, published by Inter-Varsity Press. I received a Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989.